


Anachronism

by Maleficar



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dirty Talk, F/M, Humor, Masturbation, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-04 03:23:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2907488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maleficar/pseuds/Maleficar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ellana Lavellan hopes recreating Alexius's amulet will let her save her clan. It lands her with an elvhen god bent on seducing her instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Slightly different from my other works in that there will be a middling burn to sexy times.

Ellana went to the library by way of the rotunda, pausing to watch Solas brush paint onto the wall. Though she knew little of painting, she knew enough to see that he was a master of his craft. “You’re quite skilled,” she called up to him, and then cursed herself for how moronically insipid those words sounded. If only it was as easy to flirt with him as it was to flirt with Dorian.

Of course, Dorian was actually receptive. Dorian didn’t look like he’d swallowed rashvine when she said something outlandish.

Solas paused, his brush hovering over the wall, and turned toward her. There was a look of surprise on his face, as though no one had ever complimented him before. “Thank you, Inquisitor.”

Creators, talking to him was awkward. They lapsed into a silence that could have been filled with a thousand different words, but Ellana didn’t know where to start. She could have asked him to teach her more of rift magic or inquired about the Fade, but she didn’t think he enjoyed talking to her that much. Whenever she came by, he seemed prickly. On edge. Uncertain, maybe. Whatever it was, it was obvious that he didn’t care for her company. She suspected she was too Dalish for him, which made _her_ prickly.

“Are you on your way to see Dorian?” he asked, finally, after the silence had stretched beyond awkward into painful.

She seized on the topic eagerly. “Yes, _hahren_ ,” she said, taking a slight step forward. “We think we’ve finally discovered how to replicate what Alexius did.” And it was wonderful because it meant that, maybe, she could save her clan from Wycome. 

Solas’s brow creased. She recognized the look as one of disapproval. “Playing with time is a dangerous thing, _da’len_. It is best to let the past sleep.”

Her eyes narrowed. He had deliberately forsaken whatever clan had birthed him. He had no idea the pain that kept her awake at night, the horror over her own actions. She’d chosen wrong, had sent the wrong advisor, and her clan had _died_. Every last one of them was dead and he _dared_. “Which is why you spend so much time in the Fade, sleeping in ruins?” she snapped.

“I observe,” he said gently, “and cannot interfere.”

Fury burned through her, but she choked it back and wondered why she’d bothered to tell him at all. Of course he would have a reprimand ready for her and an excuse for himself. “We—” She broke off. The fight wasn’t worth it, and would only lower his perilously low approval of her.

It was shameful how much she wanted his approval. That night he came to her in her dreams and showed her Haven, the night he spoke to her of watching over her in the aftermath of the explosion at the Conclave, she’d wanted so much to reach out to him. To touch him. To kiss him. For a moment, she almost had. But he was constantly building barriers between them. He had no interest in her. He was old enough to be her father by any measure, and she was fairly certain the only feelings he had for her were the paternal type.

Shaking her head, she turned away. “I’ll come by when you’ve finished,” she said.

“If you’d like,” he replied with that casual indifference she hated so much.

Briefly, she entertained the thought of climbing his scaffolding. She’d join him on that platform, take him by the shoulders, shove him against the wall, and kiss him. Hard. She was good at kissing, had done plenty of it. Maybe if she kissed him, he’d kiss back. Then she could wrap her arms around his neck and drag his mouth to hers. Her fingers would dance over his ears, her body would press flush to his, and he would moan her name softly into her mouth. Then she would go to her knees before him, unlacing his breeches as she stroked him through the thin cloth, and finally, _finally_ the indifference would fall away. He’d snap, his control fracturing, and he’d beg her to suck him, to taste him, to let him taste her. All the indifference would go up in smoke, and it would be magnificent. 

Instead of doing any of that, she made her way silently to the staircase, trying to decide whether she was furious or aroused.

“You’re stewing,” Dorian said when she reached him. “You realize that any interested man with a heartbeat would throw himself at you if you gave him any indication you were interested.”

She gave him a vicious scowl. “I have, though! I’ve…” She sighed. “I’ve done everything a Dalish woman would do.” And they all knew Solas had little respect for the Dalish and their customs. Fumbling children, he called them, and she wondered if that was how he saw her, too. 

“Perhaps you should flirt with him as boldly as you do me.” She recoiled physically at his words and he laughed, not at all offended. “I know, I know,” he said, waving her off before she could say a word. “Flirting with me is safe.” For a minute, there was a hollow, hunted look on his face She recognized the fleeting expression. He’d been prey once. “Now. Let’s have a look at what you found at Redcliffe.”

She hopped onto the arm of his chair and perched there, on the balls of her feet, her balance perfect. He scooted to one side in the chair, taking the book and setting it in his lap. Reaching out, he dragged a small table closer, and he took his quill in one hand, ready to take notes. “I think they’re Alexius’s notes. I didn’t expect them to come back with us.”

“But they did.”

She nodded. “And they might…” Her throat closed with emotion.

Dorian lifted his gaze to hers, quiet, waiting. She liked that about him. He was always ready with a clever quip, but he understood the pain of loss and he understood her loss in a way that Solas never would. 

“Let’s see what we can find,” she finally said.

They spent the next few days pouring over Alexius’s notes, learning how he constructed the amulet that had thrown them through time. It was surprisingly simple – Dorian posited that they were simply that clever – and a week later, they had one of their own.

“Where do we do this?” Ellana asked, practically vibrating with anticipation. She held the amulet in careful, reverent hands, enraptured by its simplistic beauty. They’d made it from ironwood bark, of all things, and it hummed with magic. She felt it crackling across her skin, kissing her cheeks and licking her fingers.

“The courtyard, I imagine,” Dorian said, his musing tone almost lost by the crashing of the waterfall. “We’d do the least amount of damage there, don’t you think?”

“We’re not going to do any damage,” she breathed, clutching the amulet in greedy fingers. “Two months. We’re going to go back two months, to Haven, and we’re going to fix… we’re going to make this right.”

He gave her a brisk nod. “Perhaps tonight?” he suggested. “There’s no need to prance about naked under a full moon, but fewer people around to watch.”

Worrying her lip with her teeth, she considered. Precisely when they used the amulet didn’t actually matter, but she wanted to use it at a time when Solas wasn’t there to disapprove, because he did. Heavily. Every time she’d passed him on the way to the library, she’d felt the weight of his judgment heavy on her shoulders. She’d taken to going to longer way, passing Vivienne to avoid him entirely.

“Now,” she said, looking at Dorian. “We’re doing it now.”

For the first time, he looked discomfited. “Inquisitor, are you sure that’s wise? In the middle of the day, with people all around… If something went wrong, could you—”

“I don’t care about them,” she snapped, jerking away from the crafting table, ignoring Harritt and Dagna’s curious looks. “I don’t care about any of them, Dorian, if this gets me my clan back, if this can save them… I don’t care.”

He looked like he wanted to say something. Instead, he closed his eyes and inclined his head. “Then we shall try it now.”

A huge smile broke her face. “Yes,” she breathed, and then she was running from the undercroft, rushing through Skyhold with Dorian close behind her. Hope swelled within her, making her heart feel so full it might burst. She twisted through the people gathered in the great hall, moving nimbly between them while Dorian, less sure-footed than she, stumbled after. She blew by Varric and Solas, and laughed with delight as she hurried down the stone steps that led to the courtyard.

She didn’t mean what she said, of course. If she sent the Inquisition’s people scattering through time, she would be depriving them of their families. She would be leaving their families to grieve. Having felt the unbearable loss of everyone she’d ever cared for, she didn’t wish that on anyone. 

“Clear the area!” she cried, shooing the soldiers.

“Yes, do,” Dorian said from behind her. “Important magery is afoot. Great feats of magic.”

As she rushed about the courtyard in front of the tavern, urging people out of the way, she hazarded a glance at the stairs. Solas stood there, with Varric, and though the distance was great enough that she couldn’t see the finer details of his expression, she knew his brows were drawn with displeasure. Unhappiness lined his entire body. His posture screamed his umbrage.

“I think that’s quite enough,” Dorian said, and she nodded, breathless with excitement. 

“We’re going to do it,” she said softly, holding out her left hand. The amulet lay in her palm, beautifully plain, perfect in every way.

With a deep breath, she reached out. She strummed the fabric of the Veil with her mind, plucking it into a sweet harmony. Magic coalesced around her in rippling waves of light, electrifying her skin and making her blood burn. Power flowed through the amulet, and she felt the moment the Veil tore and the Fade rushed into the open space. She heard the sweet music of it, the rising crescendo of raw energy braided around a full-bodied symphony of sound.

The portal opened like a massive, yawning mouth. She took a step toward it, ready to throw herself through it. But it warped savagely, and the sweet music turned to a howl. The portal distorted as it twisted around itself, and then it fizzled out entirely.

It was gone.

And in its place was a man. An elvhen man.

The amulet hit the ground at his feet, and he reached for it with an elegant, long-fingered hand as Ellana stared in shocked disbelief. “No,” she whispered. The portal was for her, and he… he had…

She threw herself to her knees, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. “My clan!” she cried, fighting mounting horror. Oh, Creators, her clan. Some distant, reasonable part of her mind insisted they could try again, but then she looked at his palm and saw the amulet was broken. Shattered. _We can make another_ , she told herself, but what if this happened again? What if some strange elvhen man tumbled from the portal meant for her again? “Who are you? Why did you come out of the portal? Why are you here? Why did you ruin everything?” she demanded, shaking him again.

Finally, he lifted his head. The wolf bone resting on his forehead like a crown rattled. Piercing, grey-blue eyes met hers. 

Something like terror shot straight through her.

He didn’t look at her the way one person looked at another. He looked at her the way a hunter looked at its prey. The way a wolf looked at a rabbit. Fierce hunger and awful power burned in his eyes.

 _Creators_. “Fenedhis,” she breathed, dread growing inside her. 

He cocked his head to the side, and her stomach heaved with sudden nausea. He turned his head the same way a wolf did. His eyes swept over her face, following the intricate lines of her vallaslin, lingering on her lips, and she licked them nervously. Distress sank icy claws into her spine, making her shudder. 

“Who…” Her words trailed off, her voice a shaking, breathless whisper. 

The expression on his face became feral, and though his lips pulled back from his teeth she would never say he was smiling. He spoke, then, his words a tumble of lyrical elvish that she couldn’t understand.

 _Oh, Creators, no_ , she thought, painfully aware of the irony. “Who are you?” she asked.

His feral grin faded, his brows contracting slightly. Lifting his hand, he made a gesture she interpreted as _more_ or _keep going_.

Trembling with anxiety, her stomach twisting viciously, she glanced at Dorian. He stared back at her. “Don’t look at me,” he said, but he held his staff in his hands, and magic crackled along the length of it.

Her eyes flickered over the rest of the gathered soldiers of Inquisition. Darted toward the stairs leading the great hall. Varric still stood on the landing, but Solas was gone.

When she looked back at _him_ , he was watching Dorian with an almost amused expression. As if the threat of magic was nothing to him.

She released his shoulders, yanking her hands back, but he caught them. Laced their fingers together. Heat arched through her, an otherworldly roll of fire and something darker, something much more dangerous. He spoke again, leaning toward her.

She leaned back, shaking her head. “No,” she told him. “No, no, no, whatever you’re thinking, no.”

He caught her wrists in one of his beautiful, elegant hands and yanked her forward. His mouth crashed against hers, and her eyes went wide as his drifted shut. She was so stunned that she gasped, and his tongue invaded her mouth as if invited. It twined around hers, stroking, caressing, and the arc of heat became a firestorm of need inside her. The tip of his tongue flicked against hers. Pain stabbed through her, and she reeled away, acutely aware of the fact that he was allowing her to go.

She fell on her ass in the dirt, still staring at him. Stunned, she lifted her fingers to her lips. In spite of the pain, she didn’t taste the coppery tang of blood.

“I am much obliged, child,” he said, “for the gift of your language.” He rose in a fluid motion, the thick ropes of his dark hair falling over his shoulder. Sparkling gemstones and bands of gold clipped his locks at odd intervals. He was magnificent, his skin sun-kissed and bronzed. His clothes, of a completely foreign cut to her, were rich. Sumptuous. They glittered with what had to be diamonds and emeralds at the hem and around his neck. Thick pieces of gold banded his upper arms, and glittering bracelets encircled his wrists. His breeches were fitted, almost skin tight, and made of some kind of scale she had never seen before. At the very least, his feet were bare, but that was a poor consolation prize for familiarity.

Familiarity. There was something very familiar about the straight line of his nose, the high cast of his cheekbones, the dimple in his chin. But the more she studied his face, the more the crackling aura of magic all around him seemed to distort his appearance.

She tried to speak again. “Who… who are…” 

He swept an imperious gaze over the Inquisition, turning to take in the rise of Skyhold behind him. When he turned back to her, his teeth were bared in that same, feral smile, and she knew. Oh, Creators, she knew in her soul who he was before he even spoke.

“Fen’Harel.”

Ellana didn’t pass out and the Inquisition didn’t attack him. Fen’Harel. The Dread Wolf. He Who Hunts Alone. As if listing all his titles would somehow make him less real.

Dorian stepped in front of her and offered her his hand. “Do we attack him, Inquisitor?” he asked softly.

She stared at him as she gained her feet. “Are you insane? Do you realize what he could do to us?”

“If he’s even telling the truth.”

She cast her eyes toward the Dread Wolf, taking in the arrogance of his posture, and wondered what she was supposed to do with him. All her life, she’d been trained to protect her people from this very creature, and now he stood before her. Resplendent. Magnificent. Power bent the very air around him. When he caught her looking, his lips curled and his brows lifted in what was an explicit invitation.

Feeling heat climb her face, she turned back to Dorian. “You really think he’s lying? The way the Veil curls around him? You think he’s just some random elvhen mage who tumbled out of a portal?”

Dorian hesitated.

“Just… don’t attack him. In fact, don’t do… anything. Just… just stand here. I need to… it’s my job…” She scrubbed her face with her hands. “Let me deal with this.” Clearing her throat, she surveyed her forces. “Sheath your blades and stow your weapons,” she commanded, her voice ringing with the authority of the Keeper she had to be. “This man is my guest.”

Her forces obeyed without question, lowering their weapons. She gave them a tense smile. “Be about your business,” she added, and, slowly, haltingly, they went.

The Dread Wolf was studying her fixedly when she glanced at him. “Odd,” he said, “that one in the service of Andruil should command such respect.”

Ellana frowned at him but said nothing. Because Dorian still held his staff in his hand and wore a look of distrust. At least the staff wasn’t crackling with magic. She turned her back on the Dread Wolf, which, all things considered, was arguably one of the stupidest things she’d ever done. “Please, Dorian,” she murmured.

“I know the stories,” he said softly, watching the Dread Wolf from the corners of his eyes. “I am aware of exactly what he is.”

“Which is why I have to deal with him.”

Dorian bent his face toward her, expression serious. “Your clan…”

“Not right now,” she said sternly, not sure she could bear up under the pain of it, and she drew away from him, approaching the Dread Wolf. “ _Andaran atish’an_ ,” she said, wondering if she ought to give him any form of obeisance. No, she decided. Healthy respect, yes, but she wouldn’t bow to him.

His brows lifted and Elvish words poured like honey from his lips. They wrapped around her, sweet and heavy, and felt like physical caresses against her skin. As he spoke, he moved closer, until the space between their bodies was so minimal she could feel the heat of him.

She blinked but didn’t take a step back. She would not be cowed. “I’m afraid we’ve lost much of our language over the years.” She paused, wondering what she should call him. Tentatively, she added, “ _Hahren_.”

Something wicked sparkled in his eyes for the barest of seconds, but confusion replaced the… was it lust? Desire? Revulsion warred with interest inside her. He was beautiful, like he’d been sculpted by a master from the most priceless of marbles, but he was still the Dread Wolf, anathema to her people.

Canting his head to one side, he said, “You have much to explain to me.” He held out his hand, and she, not knowing when else to do, put her hand in his.

Power like she’d never felt raced up her arm, leaving her numb and tingling.

“Begin by telling me how Tarasyl’an Te’las came to be in such a sorry state.” His gaze flicked over Dorian, and something like contempt curled his lips. “And why you feel the need to justify yourself to one of the shemlen.” As he spoke, he led her away from Dorian. He moved with purpose. Ease. Clearly, he’d been to Skyhold before.

Thousands of years ago. The very idea was staggering.

“It… has been some years,” she said, her voice a bit strangled as they passed Cassandra. Cassandra, who stood with Bull and Sera, watched them with narrowed eyes. Ellana made a shooing motion, trying to assure them everything was fine when it wasn’t.

“Yes,” the Dread Wolf agreed. Creators, his voice was lovely. Low and rich. Sonorous. Mellifluous. For some reason, she couldn’t help imagining him whispering lurid promises in her ear as he pinned her to a wall and pressed his hips against hers. “I can feel it.” He inhaled sharply, and she turned her head to watch him. His eyes drifted shut for just a moment, his lips parted as he breathed. “I can taste it, the difference between… now and then.” He opened his eyes and regarded her with an inscrutable expression. “Magic that distorts time is dangerous, especially for one as limited as you.”

She choked back indignation. Her? Limited? She was a superlative mage. “With all due respect—”

“Respect, yes, that’s an interesting thing.” He stopped walking and, as though he had every right, he touched his index finger to her face, tracing a line across her forehead. She knew instinctively that he was following the marks of her vallaslin. “You bear the vallaslin, and yet these creatures obey you.”

She bristled, not entirely sure why. “They honor the gods. Surely you of all people would know that, Dread Wolf,” she spat. Before he could reply – and he obviously had a witty rejoinder at the ready – she continued, “And these creatures are the Inquisition, _my_ Inquisition, and we’ve claimed Skyhold as our own.” Belatedly, she realized how defensive she sounded. And how idiotic it was to spit at a god.

Instead of being offended, he threw back his head and laughed, and the sound made magic flicker and snap in the air around them. It was incredible. Breathtaking. She stared at the glittering motes of light and realized they were wisps, drawn through the Veil by him, by his very existence.

When his laughter subsided, he wiped his thumb against his eyes and murmured something in Elvish. Suspecting it was a pejorative of some kind, she scowled at him. 

“You are a fierce thing,” he said, laughter still warming his voice. His fingers stroked over her valllaslin again, and he shifted closer to her. She went still, like a startled deer. “But perhaps Ghilan’nain’s markings would be more appropriate for you.”

“Why?” she asked, hating how breathless she was. 

His warm hand cupped her jaw, tipping her face back. Creators, his eyes were intense. And so familiar. Again, the more she tried to place his features, the more magic obscured them.

He drank her in like she was something precious and rare. “No,” he murmured. “You are not so flighty as she. Andruil suits you, huntress.” His eyes made slow progress over her face, as though he were committing her every feature to memory. “Has there ever been one of the People so lovely?”

She took a very large step away from him. Her arm, still caught by his, stretched between them, and she tried to fix him with a disapproving stare. But she couldn’t. His words were unraveling a wicked heat in her, and she suspected he knew. He watched her with satisfaction curling his lips. “You are out of time, Dread Wolf,” she said, her words awkward and abrupt.

“Yes, I’d thought as much.” He moved back to her side and began walking once more, forcing her to keep up as he approached the stairs to the parapets. 

A sigh of exasperation burst from her. “Of course you did.”

He chuckled, and more of his magic swirled around them as they ascended the steps. “But how long? Tell me, when did Arlathan fall?”

She jerked against his hold, and he placed his hand on her arm where he held her. “How did you know?”

He shrugged. “Arlathan’s fall…” He paused as they gained the parapets and came to a stop. His gaze traveled over the icy mountain peaks all around them, glittering like diamonds. “This tongue lacks the right verb tenses. Arlathan’s fall both was and is, concurrently, inevitable. The People do not live in a way that will sustain them.” Disdain laced his voice. “But that is no matter. Arlathan’s fall has always been a constant, and so I am unsurprised.”

“Oh,” she said simply, stupidly, not knowing what else to say because he wasn’t at all what she expected. Then again, there was still plenty of time for him to destroy them all. For all she knew, he’d leave a weaving of magic that would destroy Skyhold in five days.

“More interesting is the fact that you managed to rip open a portal through time.” He lifted his hand from hers, spreading his hand, palm up. She was momentarily arrested by the sight of his fingers, long and lithe, and she swallowed hard. 

It was not difficult to imagine those fingers cupping her breasts, gliding over her belly, parting her thighs, slipping between her legs and—

Creators, what was she thinking?

His fingers flexed. “There, too, is something interesting,” he murmured, bending his head toward her.

She looked at him with what she was sure was a wild-eyed expression.

“Your face, so full of restrained desire, just from the sight of my hands.” His lips brushed over the shell of her ear and a shudder wracked her body. “Imagine how much ecstasy we could find in unchaining your desire, huntress.” His tongue touched the tip of her ear, and she let out a quiet cry. But then he drew away, and her amulet appeared in his palm. “Such a crude piece of magic. Unrefined to the point of barbarism. And yet you managed to tear a hole in the very essence of time, though that simplifies everything far too much. Rather, you twisted time on itself with this little piece of wood, and you found me.” He gave her another of those feral smiles. “Why were you bending time, huntress? Such a thing is folly.”

She turned away from him, trying to find the snowy mountains half as fascinating as him. _You’re supposed to protect people from him,_ she reminded herself. _The Dread Wolf finally appears, and you’re practically panting after him._ “You hunt alone,” she replied stiffly. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“It was not always so. But I do prefer it that way.”

“Hunting alone or your ignorance?”

Again, he laughed, and magic and spirits danced in the air around them. “Have the People forgotten all their reverence since the days of Arlathan?” he asked.

“Only most of it,” she muttered.

“Good for them,” he said. “You dodge my questions artfully, _da’len_ , but I would know what madness drove you to this.” He dangled the amulet in front of her face, and she snatched it from his hands. 

Stuffing it into one of the pouches on her hip, she turned to him with a flat expression. “We live in clans, now,” she said, “and I killed mine.”

One of his brows rose, but he said nothing. Offered no judgment. 

The story came spilling out of her: how she’d contacted her clan, how they’d told her of bandits, how she’d asked Josephine to speak to the Duke of Wycome, as if humans would ever do anything to help the elves. By the end, she was crying and cursing the shems, furiously wiping the tears from her eyes. “This is how it always is,” she said around her sobs, “and I don’t know why I thought it would be different. But I’m the Inquisitor, now, and I have to play by their rules, so I tried playing by their rules, and… and…” A great sob wracked her body.

To her immense surprise, he drew her into his arms. The embrace was gentle and kind, comforting. Her fingers curled into fists at her side – she wouldn’t allow herself to return the embrace of the Dread Wolf. 

He murmured strange words to her in Elvish, and they, too, were comforting. His cadence was soft and reassuring, and he continued speaking until her sobs subsided and her tears dried. When he drew back, there was death in his eyes. “You called the human Wycome?”

She nodded, wiping her tears from her face. “But—” She let out a cry of surprise as the Veil itself tore.

“What a bizarre thing this is,” he said with a frown.

“The Veil?” she asked.

“Who did this? Who would cut off—” He stopped speaking, his expression somehow wry and amused and furious all at once. “Yes,” he murmured, “I see how that was the only solution.” 

The Veil tore more, and she cried out in alarm. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “Stop, you’re—is that a _demon_?”

“A spirit of vengeance. Elgar’nan would be so pleased,” he said mildly as the creature reared up from the ground, all white hot flame and fury. The Dread Wolf smoothed his hand over the demon’s head. “Find this Wycome and destroy him. Slowly. Make sure he sees his death coming for years. Let the knowledge of it fester.” He lifted his hand from the spirit’s head, and the spirit streaked off.

She stared at him. “You can’t _do_ that.”

Amused, he said, “But of course I can. I just did. Now you will swear an oath to me in return for this gift.”

“I didn’t ask for it!” 

“And yet I gave it. You will swear an oath,” he said, catching her chin in his thumb and forefinger, “that you will never again attempt to bend time.”

She stopped herself from saying something idiotic, like _may the Dread Wolf take you._ Because she saw something like concern in his eyes, and she remembered the story of the slow arrow. “I swear it,” she said slowly, carefully, her gaze fixed on his.

“I think not. Speak these words.” He gave her a phrase in Elvish, one punctuated by his name, and, after a second’s hesitation, she repeated it. Something in his eyes shifted. “Again,” he murmured.

She began to repeat the oath.

“No,” he said, touching his fingers to her lips. Fire lanced through her and settled lazily in her belly. “Just my name, huntress.”

She tried to draw away from his touch, alarmed by the heat he stoked in her, but his fingers curled around the back of her neck to hold her in place. She swallowed. “Fen’Harel,” she breathed, since she had no recourse.

“What a lovely sound.” His words were no more than a whisper. And then he kissed her.

She expected a kiss like he’d given her in the courtyard, something hard and demanding. Instead, he plied her lips with his own, his touch measured and gentle and far too light. Her hands curled into fists in his tunic, and she shifted closer, wanting and needing more. More pressure. More heat. It had been too long since anyone had kissed her, and the Creators knew Solas wasn’t going to any time in the near future.

That didn’t excuse her for parting her lips and letting the Dread Wolf’s tongue slip into her mouth. That didn’t excuse her for pressing her body against his and throwing her arms around his neck. That didn’t excuse her for moaning with abandon when he growled into her mouth and settled one hand on the small of her back. He urged her closer still, and she felt the hard press of his cock against her belly.

This was demented. Deranged. Completely insane. Her whole life she’d devoted herself to the study of magic to protect her clan from him. Clan Lavellan might be gone, but the Inquisition was its own kind of clan. And what was she doing? She was accepting gifts from the Dread Wolf and letting him sweep her mouth with drugging kisses.

“You taste divine, huntress,” he murmured against her lips.

“You would know, being divine yourself,” she said without thinking.

He chuckled, the sound dark and full of lust. “I will take that as a compliment, I think.” And then he kissed her again, his fingers driving into her hair. Pins clinked softly against the stone as he unraveled her tight braid, her hair spilling down her back as he brushed his lips over hers. As he stole her breath. As he devoured her and filled her with a burning desperation to feel his body naked against her own.

She drowned in him, sank into the sweet wanting of him. Her cunt clenched and rippled, and she felt empty, so empty, like she would die if he didn’t press her to the ground and fill her with his cock.

Drawing back, he gave her a lazy, arrogant smile. “I like you much better with your hair down,” he said, “twisted and mussed from my fingers.” His lips brushed against hers as he continued, “I wonder what it would look like wrapped around my fist as you crawled, hot and eager, over my body. But then, it might look even lovelier against a white pillow as your head thrashed and your back arched as I tasted you.”

She gasped, her fingers curling in the hair at the base of his neck, and he purred, arching into that touch. 

“You would be amenable to that, wouldn’t you be, huntress?”

Her mouth worked, but no sound came out. She wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t. She hadn’t ever considered herself a sexual creature until she met Solas. He’d awakened every manner of fantasy in her, but he never responded to any of her offers for intimacy. And that had left her bruised. The first time she’d offered herself to anyone and she’d been rebuffed. Dismissed. 

His lips trailed over the column of her neck, a light and fleeting caress. “I wonder, do you wear your vallaslin over more than just your face?”

Now she had the Dread Wolf’s lips on her body, and she would be lying if she said she hadn’t once fantasized about just this thing.

The hand on the small brushed over her hips. “Will I find Andruil’s bows here?” His fingers ghosted over her belly. “Here?” 

How many times had she imagined him coming to her, trying to seduce her with promises of pleasure and power? Too many to count. 

His fingers trailed lower, and she gasped, her hips arching against the touch that feathered over her pubic bone and then lower. “Certainly here.”

And yet in those fantasies, she’d always turned him away. The Keeper victorious.

His fingers withdrew, and she whimpered for wanting their heat.

“Imagine, huntress,” he crooned as his teeth grazed the fragile skin of her throat, “the pleasure to be had at my tongue following the bends and curves of all those marks.” He licked her, and her knees almost buckled.

Creators, she was the worst. The absolute worst. She had always triumphed in her fantasies because she’d never considered how sexually potent the Blighted Dread Wolf would actually be. Because she hadn’t understood sexual power until this moment, experiencing it for the first time.

“Wouldn’t you like a tour of Skyhold?” she gasped out. “And I can tell you… I can tell you… all about…” She shivered as he bit lightly against her neck. “About things. And—and—”

“Will that tour end in your bed, huntress? Will we tumble into it and then each other? Will you sing for me in moans and sighs as I conquer your trembling body?”

She was failing to stand strong against him. Her resolve was crumbling, and she needed an escape before she forgot all sense of reason and begged him to make good on promises she had only dreamed of a lover making. Virgin she may be, but she wasn’t ignorant of sex. She’d overheard enough whispered conversations and knew the mechanics of it from animals well enough.

But this. This mind-scrambling, thought-altering heat that his every word cultivated in her was beyond anything she’d ever considered.

With a cry, she shoved hard at his chest, and the Anchor flickered in her hand, filling the space between them with eerie green light.

He jerked back and caught her wrist in his hand, turning her palm toward him. The lust was gone from his eyes – how, she wondered, did he do that, because she knew desire still fogged her gaze – replaced by intent. “Now this,” he murmured, “is utterly fascinating. I need no tour of Tarasyl’an Te’las. I’d much rather hear the story of how you came by _this_.”

Because it put space between him and her, she let the words tumble out of her mouth.

A strange smile curved his lips.

“Tell me more of your Solas,” he commanded when she’d finished regaling him with the story of Corypheus and the Inquisition. He threaded her arm through his and led her across the parapets, a hungry expression on his face.

“I tell you about the darkspawn and the Blights and a corrupted Tevinter magister, and you want to know about _Solas_?” she asked, baffled.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “And once you’re done telling me everything about your… was apostate the word you used? Yes. Once you’ve told me everything about him, I should like something to eat.” His wolfish smile suggested he wasn’t talking about food.

She swallowed and hoped there was a way to send Fen’Harel home. Soon.


	2. Chapter 2

The portal opened, and Solas went utterly still beside Varric.

“Something wrong, Chuckles?” Varric asked.

Solas, mind straining against a very sudden and very new set of memories, opted for a glib reply. “Incidentally, there is a large portal in the middle of the courtyard that could lead to any moment in time,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back and struggling not to collapse under the weight of these new memories.

_The lick of magic on his skin. He glanced up. Was it Sylaise again? Or Andruil? No, this magic lacked their distinctiveness._

_Alien._

_Other._

_Fascination replaced confusion. Youthful exuberance subsumed caution._

“I find that particularly distressing, especially after the events at Redcliffe Castle.” Events which he had not been present for. But Varric had.

“ _That’s_ what they’re doing? Andraste’s tits,” Varric swore, shuffling back a few steps. “You going to stop them?”

Time was a fickle thing. In his youth, he’d played with it enough times to know how dangerous such games truly were. One could move back in time at one’s leisure, but never forward in one’s own timeline without invitation. Which was precisely what the Inquisitor had just given him.

He closed his eyes, bracing himself against the sick feeling of tumbling through time. The memory of grass beneath his fingers crashed over him. He was acutely aware of the strange scents that filled Tarasyl’an Te’las, the odd noises. The song was gone. Silent. That was when he felt the Veil straining against his skin, but because he couldn’t immediately comprehend it, he ignored it. 

Ah, the arrogance of youth.

Knowing the memories would keep building, Solas shifted silently away from Varric. He was just inside Skyhold when his younger self stole language from the Inquisitor in the form of a kiss. Objectively, he could appreciate that the spell was clever. Subjectively, he was undone. Her mouth was sweet and soft and hot, and the little gasp that tumbled from her mouth to his made pleasure swell in both versions of him, in the him that was Solas and the him that was Fen’Harel.

Pain lanced through his skull, like a spike being driven through his eye. It was enough to curb his burgeoning erection. Closing his eyes, he pressed his fingers against his lids and supposed that, to save himself from a migraine, he would have to call his younger self Fen’Harel.

He shuddered. He’d abandoned that name for very good reasons, in no small part because every elf in modern day Thedas would kill him for it.

Stumbling into the rotunda, Solas collapsed onto the couch and threw his arm over his face. He lay there, letting the memories blossom against his closed eyelids like exquisite bursts of magic.

_Vallaslin covered her beautiful face. Slave marks. But she was no slave._

_He touched them, caressed them, wanted to trace them with his tongue. Wanted to follow the sinuous lines of fickle Andruil’s marks beyond the edges of her clothing._

“You don’t even know her name, fool boy,” Solas muttered.

And he was barely more than a child, this Fen’Harel. Oh, by the People’s reckoning, he was ancient. But he was possessed of the hauteur of his youth and the egoism of his power, and for some inexplicable reason, the Inquisitor seemed taken by it.

“Run from him, _da’len_. Run.”

_Her eyes on his fingers, darkening with desire._

_He wanted to dip into her mind, to know her thoughts. He wanted to strip away the barriers between them, to strip her, to take her into his arms and then take her, to satisfy her desires and his._

She didn’t run.

Groaning, Solas dropped one hand to his cock, rubbing his palm over his suddenly aching erection. He’d been dodging the Inquisitor’s sweet, if awkward, attempts at flirtation since the very first. She was so young, so innocent, so delectable – no. Fen’Harel found her delectable. Solas found her… Solas found her…

He was a fool. An old fool, for he found her delectable, too. Utterly captivating with her bright-eyed interest in everything. She had an insatiable desire to learn that drew him to her like a moth to flame. But she deserved someone who wasn’t lying to her. Someone who wouldn’t inevitably leave her, as he would. As soon as they’d dealt with Corypheus, as soon as he’d retrieved his orb, he would disappear.

He snorted, realizing he sounded no better than Blackwall.

Then his heart seized. This was torture, remembering all these things at the same moment they were happening. She was sobbing, breaking down, and it was Fen’Harel who offered her comfort. It was Fen’Harel who held her and whispered gentle words in her ear as she cry. Unsurprisingly, it was also Fen’Harel who offered her vengeance.

It should have been him. Solas swore, lurching off his couch, hardly daring to breathe, terrified of what would come next. Would she melt into Fen’Harel’s arms as so many women had before her? He wouldn’t blame her if she did. Fen’Harel wasn’t offering her vengeance to buy her affections but because her hurt genuinely distressed him.

With a bitter laugh, Solas reached for his paints. Maybe that would offer him some meditative peace as his younger self—

He bit out an oath that would have made even Andruil gasp in shock and went to his knees. Again, Fen’Harel kissed her. Again, he could taste the sweet heat of her mouth as if the memory wasn’t thousands of years old. As if it were new and fresh.

His cock ached, hard and throbbing in his pants, and he didn’t care in the least that someone could walk in on him at any moment. He lost himself in the vision-memory, drowning in the taste of her, the feel of her, and he tore at his laces, freeing his cock. Grasping himself in a rough hand, he started stroking. It was easy to imagine her lips on him instead of his hand.

Swearing softly, he braced his free hand on the floor and groaned.

_Her hair sliding like silk between his fingers, pulled free of her tight braid, a curling halo around her face._

_His words, obscene promises. Delight brought a rosy flush to her cheeks._

_Her fingers rubbing against the base of his neck._

A sound caught somewhere between gasp and moan escaped him. He could practically feel the touch of her fingers against Fen’Harel’s skin. Could remember it with crystalline clarity. Suddenly, there were even more memories. Nights spent tangled in his sheets, his hand on his cock like it was now, that moment – her fingers in his hair, her cheeks flushed, her lips parted and slick from his kisses – the source of his pleasure.

So many times. He’d made himself come with that memory so many times, and he was going to again. This time, knowing her as he did, he felt depraved. Fen’Harel had lusted for her body. Solas lusted for her everything and denied himself.

With a quiet gasp, he arched into his fist, driving his cock between his fingers.

_His hands on her hips. Her belly. Curling between her legs._

Would he find Andruil’s marks there? Panting, he realized he was desperate to know and was horrified by the idea that he might only know through Fen’Harel’s memories.

Choking on a groan, he came as the Inquisitor pushed Fen’Harel away, the Anchor snapping and angry between them. His seed spilled over his hand, dripping onto the flagstones, and he shuddered. He felt emptied. Hollowed out. The best orgasm he’d ever had, and it was all because his younger self was taking what Solas knew he couldn’t have. 

He staggered to his feet, wiping himself with one of his many cloths and setting his breeches to rights. He mopped up the floor, but left the cloth there out of malice.

Incidentally, when the Inquisitor poked her head in several hours later – after she’d told Fen’Harel all about Corypheus and the Inquisition and _him_ – she didn’t trip on the cloth at all. She gave it a baffled look but then turned to him.

Her cheeks were still flushed, her hair still falling down her back. Of course it was. Before she’d handed Fen’Harel over to Josie, with whom he was having a strained if cordial conversation, Fen’Harel had tangled his hands in his hair and kissed her breathless. She looked beautiful, a woman suddenly aware that her allure was great enough to garner the interest of a god.

If only he’d responded to her flirtations.

“The Dread Wolf, _da’len_?” he asked, unable to stop himself.

Her bright-eyed exuberance died a sudden death. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Half the Inquisition saw him kissing you on the parapets,” Solas said. It wasn’t untrue in the strictest sense. Half the Inquisition had seen him kissing her, he just hadn’t been in that half. Technically.

She bristled. “Who I kiss and who kisses me is... is…” She sputtered, her fingers curling into fists. Electricity crackled along the tips of her hair and over the points of her ears. “It’s none of your business.”

“Of course not,” he said, dabbing his brush against the wall. “I simply wouldn’t expect a Dalish First to be so easily swayed by him.”

“It’s not like I wanted him to kiss me!” she exclaimed, and Solas wondered if he was going to have to kill his younger self for pressing where he was not wanted. He – they – had certainly seduced enough women, plying them with glittering gifts, honeyed words, and succulent kisses until an uncertain, wavering _no_ became a desperately whispered _yes, more, please_. But he didn’t want that for her. He didn’t want to see her reduced to mindless begging for Fen’Harel’s pleasure.

“No?” he asked, voice soft. Almost dangerous. He couldn’t fight his younger self and win, but if he needed to, he would certainly try. And there were more ways to skin a nug than throwing oneself into a fight with a god with magic blazing.

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Crossed her arms and looked away from him, an awkward expression on her face. “He’s a good kisser, and Creators know no one _else_ around here is kissing me.”

This was the moment, he realized. This was the moment he needed to make his interest in her very clear, or she would likely take Fen’Harel to her bed before the night was out. “Won’t they?” he inquired, setting his paints aside.

“No,” she snapped. “And it’s not for lack of—oh!” She broke off as he, sitting by the base of the wall, unfolded himself and rose to his feet. 

She took a tentative step back. He followed, filling her space until her back hit another wall. She stared at him with wide eyes, but her lips were parted, her breaths were quick, and her cheeks were that delightful rosy color.

Bending toward her, he laced his hands behind his back. Nothing of him touched anything of her. “A grave oversight,” he murmured. Their lips met.

His kiss was gentle and soft. It made no demands of her because he would not make demands of her. He would make no queries, only quiet overtures. Her lips parted on a gasp, but he didn’t take advantage of her mouth. Instead, he explored her lips with his, mapping them thoroughly, leaving no inch of flesh untouched.

There were, he could see, failings in his technique. It had been centuries since he’d last kissed a woman. But when he drew back, studying her, and she blinked her eyes open, her gaze was glassy with desire. “One perhaps now rectified?” 

“What?”

The corner of his lips quirked up. “My grave oversight in not kissing you.” He drew away from her, returning to his paints and the wall. He hazarded a brief glance at her. She was still leaning heavily against the wall, her breath coming so harshly that he could see the sharp rise and fall of her breasts. “Did you have a purpose to this visit, _da’len_ , other than to encourage me to overcome one of my many shortcomings?”

She stared at him, just breathing, for several seconds. Then she blurted out, “Dinner. He wants to meet you at dinner. Him. The Wolf. The Dread Wolf. Fen’Harel.”

Of course he did. “Of course he does. I’m sure he’s very interested in knowing why it is two of his kind allow themselves to be bound by human trappings. But we must guard our tongues. It would not do for him to return to his own time with too much knowledge of this one,” Solas said.

“I…” She shuffled toward him. “I’m sorry, I’m still…” She fell silent, gesturing vaguely to the wall.

He allowed himself another small smile. “It was my pleasure,” he purred, matching his pitch and timbre to Fen’Harel’s. So many times he’d used that purr to send women to their knees before him. A small part of him did want to see Ellana Lavellan on her knees, but he didn’t want her gazing at him with worshipful adoration. He wanted… What he wanted was irrelevant.

Regardless, she stared at him with that breathless, glassy-eyed expression he was coming to love, and he felt visceral pleasure that he could make her look like that as easily as his younger self. He hadn’t lost all his skills to time.

“Josie’s throwing a feast,” she finally managed, and then she scurried out of the rotunda.

Solas sighed softly and resigned himself to what was sure to be a long and torturous affair.

It was. Of course it was. How could it be anything else?

Fen’Harel had somehow arranged for the feast to be done in the style of Arlathan, with low-standing tables laden with finger foods. Pillows, plush and silken, covered the floor in place of chairs. Solas’s only pleasure was watching the Inquisitor’s Inner Circle awkwardly maneuvering themselves into places around the high table. Fen’Harel, naturally, lazed comfortably at the head of the table, and the Inquisitor was at his side.

He couldn’t quite read the expression on her face. She was intrigued by the odd way Fen’Harel insisted on dining – he knew that because he remembered her saying it as she whispered, at that moment, into Fen’Harel’s ear. And Fen’Harel, may the Blight take him, brushed his fingers over Ellana’s thigh, making her gasp, and murmured back, “You will find it most intimate, huntress.”

Solas slid into his place at the far end of the table, between Vivienne and Cassandra, and waited for one of them to comment on how similar he and Fen’Harel looked. But no one did. In their defense, Fen’Harel’s aura of magic was likely doing much to shield him. Solas could see it writhing in the air, so thick it was like a curtain. 

“Solas,” Cassandra said softly as Fen’Harel’s hand ghosted along the Inquisitor’s inner thigh.

Solas could feel the soft, supple leather of her breeches as though he were touching her, not his younger self. Something inside him twisted, and he realized he was jealous. Jealous of himself. Jealous of the liberal freedoms Fen’Harel took so casually with the Inquisitor.

“Yes, Seeker?” He reached for a piece of pheasant, plucking it from the communal platter and laying it on his plate. The meal itself was very much of Arlathan, and as he poured a fruit sauce of his meat, he realized the others were moving slowly, unsurely, watching Fen’Harel to determine how to eat their meal.

He would have to make a point of doing the same.

“What can you tell me about the Dread Wolf?” she asked, lowering her voice. “I admit, I do not know much of Dalish mythology.”

“Is it mythology when he sits before us?” Vivienne asked, batting away a glowing ball of light. As in Arlathan, the hall was lit by wisps, their light pulsing but subtle.

In the relative darkness, so much more passed between diners than could ever occur in light. He took a deep breath, remembering meals like this. Remembering the games of danger and seduction. At those dinners, he would have leaned toward Vivienne and brushed his hand up her back, his fingers flirting with her skin as he murmured something as obscene as it was enlightening into her ear. Then he would have turned to Cassandra and curled his hand over her thigh, his fingers tantalizingly close to her cunt, toying with her as he explained the intricacies of Dalish beliefs about the Dread Wolf.

Instead, he ate a small piece of pheasant, his eyes fixed on the place where Fen’Harel’s hand disappeared under the table.

“Fen’Harel,” he said slowly, measuring his words, “was one of the gods and was kin to both the Creators and the Forgotten Ones. It was he who locked both pantheons away, and it is said that after his deception, he spent centuries in a far corner of the earth, hugging himself and giggling madly with glee.” 

“Charming,” Vivienne murmured, finally taking a bite of a wedge of fruit stuffed with cheese.

Solas stiffened, watching Fen’Harel turn his head to whisper in the Inquisitor’s ear. His mouth was so close to her that it brushed her skin, and Solas felt the caress. It burned his lips, filled him with a yearning fire, and he closed his hands into fists in his lap.

“No one can see, huntress,” Fen’Harel whispered, and Solas heard the echo of those words in his mind. He felt the slow slide of Fen’Harel’s hand up the inside of the Inquisitor’s leg. “How quiet can you be?”

Damn her, she whispered back, “I’m Dalish, _hahren_. We are silent as death.” 

She was flirting back, and she had no idea the dangerous game she played. Or maybe he was just furious that she would continue dancing with Fen’Harel after he had kissed her in the rotunda. Had he not made his intentions explicitly clear? Was there some confusion? Briefly, he debated killing Fen’Harel. Realistically, he would not succeed. Fen’Harel was simply too powerful. It would also, he assumed, create a rather unfortunate paradox where he never imprisoned the Creators and the Forgotten Ones.

He wondered, briefly, how the world would be different, and the thought made him shudder.

“Is there anything else?” Cassandra asked, breaking into his thoughts as Fen’Harel’s fingers glided further up the Inquisitor’s thigh, pausing just near enough to feel her heat.

That, too, was a fantasy that sustained Fen’Harel through the ages, and as the memories built, Solas felt himself changing, ever so slightly. He still held himself back from the Inquisitor, but it was harder. To have the woman he’d lusted for suddenly within his reach again was sweet torture.

“Forgive me, I was woolgathering. Anything else about what?” Solas asked, reaching for his goblet of wine. This, at least, was Thedosian. He took comfort in it, to his surprise.

“About Fen’Harel,” Cassandra said. “Anything you might tell us?”

So Solas told them the story of the slow arrow as Fen’Harel’s lips brushed the Inquisitor’s ear. “Shall we see how quiet you can be?” Fen’Harel asked, and Solas fought a cringe.

But Fen’Harel’s ridiculous lines were working. Ellana had shifted closer to him, and Solas remembered keenly the feeling of her light fingers on his thigh, perilously close to his aching arousal. 

He kept his tone even, telling Cassandra and Vivienne of the nobleman who fell in love with a beautiful elvhen lady when he saw her at a funeral. 

As he spoke, Fen’Harel’s hand brushed over Ellana’s core, his fingers catching in her laces as he promised her hours of wicked pleasure. Solas remembered well the heat of Ellana’s body, the softness hidden beneath her breeches, the way her breath hitched and her eyes darkened. Fen’Harel was stupidly captivated by her and her dichotomies. He was enamored by her power in spite of the vallaslin, drunk on the strength in her body even though she was a mage. He found her bold flirtations alluring but read the innocence in her mannerisms. While that dichotomy had encouraged Solas to keep his distance – she deserved someone younger, someone who wouldn’t leave, someone who she could wake with every morning – it drew Fen’Harel ever closer.

The man was practically drunk on her. Solas was unsurprised but that didn’t stop him from being annoyed and increasingly jealous.

The jealousy flared when her eyes lifted from Fen’Harel’s and met his across the table. She offered him a shy smile, and when Fen’Harel turned to look his way, she murmured, “That’s Solas.”

There was nothing to obscure Solas from Fen’Harel, no magic Solas could conjure to distort his face or Fen’Harel’s perception. Fen’Harel saw him and knew him, and the conniving, feral grin that spread across his face sent alarm skittering down Solas’s spine. Fen’Harel knew that Solas wanted Ellana. Fen’Harel knew that Solas denied himself. And so Fen’Harel caught Ellana’s chin in his fingers, turning her face to his, and swept his thumb over her lips.

She shivered, staring at him with eyes almost entirely swallowed by her blown pupils.

Beside him, he heard Cassandra make a noise of disgust. “We should…” She trailed off, her gaze fixed on Fen’Harel and Ellana, and she shook her head, lip curling.

“The Inquisitor is an adult, darling,” Vivienne said. “She can make her own choices.”

That didn’t stop Solas from silently agreeing with Cassandra. They _should_ do something. Like throw Fen’Harel out of Skyhold on his ass. He and Fen’Harel both knew well the ancient magics that coursed through Tarasyl’an Te’las. If Fen’Harel was removed and his welcome denied, the keep would never let him back through its gates. And once the keep fell out of sight, Fen’Harel would never find it again.

In any time.

There was a poetic justice to that, but Solas recognized, again, that it would cause the most unfortunate of paradoxes. He curled his fingers into fists and resisted the urge to slam his head against the table. It would serve no purpose other than making him look like a fool.

Especially because, now, as Fen’Harel brushed a finger along Ellana’s ear, Solas knew his younger self was being quite deliberate.

_I’m an ass,_ he thought bitterly. Then he thought it again, in Elvish, using an incredibly complex and nuanced verb form that more or less indicated he was an ass in the past as Fen’Harel, was still an ass in the present as Solas, and would forever be an ass. An ass who was jealous of himself.

Fen’Harel turned from Ellana briefly, plucking a piece of fruit from one of the platters. He offered it to her, and Solas sucked in a sharp breath, willing her not to take it. She hesitated but did, her lips hot and wet on the tips of Fen’Harel’s fingers, and suddenly he had half a million fantasies about those lips sustaining him through the ages.

Her lips on his fingers, on his neck, on his chest, on his cock. Her mouth, sucking him deep as she moaned and whimpered with pleasure, her fingers buried in her cunt as he gripped her hair in a tight fist and guided her over his cock. 

Without knowing it, she’d just condemned herself. Taking food from another’s hand at one of those ancient feasts was a tacit acceptance of them. Of all the pleasure they offered. She’d just told Fen’Harel he was welcome in her bed without realizing it, and Fen’Harel would not hesitate to take advantage of that welcome. 

“Would you taste so ripe on my tongue, little huntress?” Fen’Harel murmured, the fingers between her legs plucking at her laces until they came undone. She gasped softly but didn’t stop him when he slipped those fingers into her breeches and past her smalls.

Fury almost blinded Solas. He swallowed another large mouthful of wine, as though getting blissfully drunk would somehow solve all his problems.

Fen’Harel made a soft sound of pleasure as his fingers pressed into her folds and she gasped again. Her fingers, cool and lightly callused, grabbed at his wrist. “ _Hahren_ ,” she whispered, scandalized, and there, too, were hundreds of fantasies. Fen’Harel stroked himself to the memory of that shocked whisper, imagining himself taking her in shadowed alcoves while servants passed them by, in darkened market streets, on balconies where anyone could see them. “ _Hahren_ , we’re… in public.”

Laughing softly, Fen’Harel shrugged. His fingers slid around her clit, and Solas shut his eyes. As if that would block out the sweet memory of her flesh beneath his touch. Her hips shifted, the memory so clear, relived hundreds of thousands of times over the long course of his life, and Fen’Harel pressed his fingers lower, teasing her entrance. 

“This is what one does at feasts, little huntress,” Fen’Harel murmured, and he slipped one finger into her.

Solas ground his teeth together. He wanted to be the one discovering the soft sweetness of her body, not Fen’Harel. He wanted to hear the quiet whimpers and gentle moans, not through Fen’Harel’s memories. He wanted to rip his younger self’s head clear off his shoulders, for all the good that would do.

_Peace_ , he reminded himself, but it was hard to be at peace, hard to be calm and collected, when Fen’Harel’s fingers delved into Ellana’s body, stroking, caressing, pressing. 

_Her expression tight. Her teeth digging into her lower lip. Eyes wide, cheeks flushed. Hips moving in sharp jerks against his hand as she tried to fight the pleasure._

Fen’Harel murmured to her in Elvish. She didn’t understand, but Solas remembered the words clearly. Obscene words of praise. Words that would have shocked any elvhen lady. An elvhen lady would have twittered and protested them, but Ellana dug her fingers into Fen’Harel’s wrist and tried to distract herself with food.

Fen’Harel wasn’t deterred. 

The memory was so sharp, clear as a perfect diamond, glittering in Solas’s mind. Her body trembling as Fen’Harel’s fingers pressed into her, working her gently but relentlessly. He wanted her bent to his will, and so he was kind. But he was still an immortal god, unbound by things like time. His exploration of her was leisurely. In Arlathan, a dinner like this would have gone on for a decade at least, and Fen’Harel would have spent those ten years in pursuit of his prey.

But she was inexperienced, unused to holding out against pleasure. She quaked against Fen’Harel’s fingers, hers tightening on his wrist, and he, knowing how close she was, offering her another succulent fruit. She bit into it as she came, her quiet moan like music to both Fen’Harel and Solas. Was Cullen close enough that he heard? Had Blackwall noticed? Iron Bull certainly had, and he wore the same expression of disapproval that was on Cassandra’s face.

“How does one say no to a god?” Vivienne was asking, and she took a bite of the same fruit Fen’Harel had fed to Ellana. A small moan of delight escaped her, too, and she pressed her fingers to her lips in shock.

“Easily,” Solas said softly. “One simply says _no_.”

“And you think he would accept a refusal?” Cassandra snapped.

Solas pinched the bridge of his nose. His erection was a pulsing, heavy distraction between his legs. And now, coupled with the memory of Fen’Harel giving Ellana a sweet, gentle orgasm – in public – he could taste her on his tongue. Fen’Harel had licked his fingers clean.

It would never again be enough to simply be at her side. Not anymore. She would flirt with him in that quiet, subtle way of hers and he wouldn’t respond with an easy kiss. He would drag her to her room, to his, to the floor of a forest, or to the sandy desert dunes, and he would take her there.

She was tart, a sharp tang of citrus. He wanted to dip his tongue between her legs and feast on her cunt. 

Fen’Harel was likely to end up with that pleasure before the evening was out, and it infuriated him. There were centuries – millenniums – and several worlds of difference between the man who sat at Ellana’s side and Solas. If Fen’Harel had her, if Fen’Harel had the pleasure of having her, it would not be the same as if Solas had her.

“He is a god, not a barbarian,” Solas finally said, aware of how stiffly he spoke, aware of how both Vivienne and Cassandra turned curious, disbelieving gazes on him. “Fen’Harel was often cruel and always capricious, but he rarely harmed the innocent.” Even when he had told the lord to kill the king’s second daughter, he had done the world a service. She had been a petty, malicious creature who delighted in the torture of her slaves.

Over the length of the table, Fen’Harel caught Solas’s eyes. With a knowing smile, he lifted his goblet of wine in mock salute. At his side, Ellana was a furious shade of red under the umber cast of her skin.

“Excuse me, Seeker, First Enchanter. I have recently remembered some delicate magics that require my attention,” he murmured, and he left the feast without acknowledging his younger self.

He made it back to the rotunda, picked up his painting supplies, and went to work on his mural while battling the memories. 

_His lips on her ear, his tongue flicking the point._

_A gasp, a quiet and strangled moan._

_“Not again,” she breathed as his fingers pressed against her, teased her, traced magic over her clit._

_He paused. Waited. Gave her a moment to think. “No?” His fingers moved again, circling, teasing, promising and tantalizing but not fulfilling._

Torture. This was torture, and Solas didn’t know how to end it. Send his younger self back to where he belonged, surely, but there was no fool-proof way to do that. Short of convincing Fen’Harel to get out and go back, which would be about as successful as telling a cranky toddler to do something. He’d refuse just to be contrary.

_Her fingers on his thigh as she leaned closer._

Solas’s fingers tightened on his brush, his strokes erratic. He’d have to go over this section. Again.

_“No,” she murmured, her lips pursed so prettily._

_He wanted her lips on his body. On one particular part of his body._

_Her fingers stretched. Reached. Brushed over the hard line of his cock._

The paintbrush snapped in half.

Biting back a snarl, Solas took the remains of the paintbrush and slid down the scaffolding to dispose of them. He stumbled when his feet touched the floor. His cock was still achingly hard, but he refused to touch himself, as if doing so would demean Ellana. The Inquisitor. 

_A tentative, gentle stroke from her. A hiss of pleasure from him._

_“None have our keen eyesight, huntress,” he whispered. “Be bold.”_

She was bold. He remembered her boldness. She nibbled on fruits and vegetables as she stroked him, as her fingers pulled his laces free and slipped into his trousers. She carried on an entire conversation with Cullen as she tormented him, and he remembered his amusement and satisfaction at how well she seemed to play this ancient Arlathan game.

He remembered the feel of her fingers ghosting over his flesh and hated that he hadn’t experienced that touch as Solas first. But, then, time was a strange thing. If Fen’Harel had stumbled into their present after Solas bedded Ellana, if she’d still stroked Fen’Harel under the table at the feast, would that action technically precede the other? For him, perhaps.

He sagged against the scaffolding, pressing his palm to his cock to ease the hot pressure of his arousal. Pleasure seared his every nerve at that almost casual touch, blinding him to everything but the memory.

When Fen’Harel was at the edge of his patience, just as they started on the desert course, he tugged lightly on an unbound lock of her hair.

_She turned to him. “Hmm?”_

_“Speak these words.” A low murmur of ancient Elvish, sweetly lyrical in spite of its vulgarity._

_Her whispered response._ Fill my hand with your seed, _she murmured._ Come undone against my hand, _she cajoled._

_He did. Ecstasy. Rapture. A quiet sigh as he spilled into her palm._

Solas couldn’t help himself. His hand slid into his breeches, stroking as hers had, and he was so hard, so desperate, that the echoing memory of her words had him coming with a cry, his back bowed with pleasure. Sagging against the scaffolding, he took deep, harsh breaths.

Fen’Harel had to go. He needed to leave. Immediately.

But first, Solas needed to change. He did so swiftly, wondering if anyone in the library above had heard his cry. Truthfully, he didn’t care if they did. Fen’Harel wouldn’t have cared because caring was beneath him, because his sexuality was something to exalt in. Solas didn’t care because he was too old to be bothered by the opinions of others.

He’d just finished shrugging into a fresh tunic when the door to the rotunda swung open. He felt Fen’Harel’s presence pushing against him, a heavy blanket of magic and power twined with sex and allure. He remembered being that man, remembered the oddity of staring at his own back. Was that really what he looked like from behind? Bizarre.

“I see we shaved off our hair.”

Solas turned casually. Fen’Harel could snap him in half with an errant thought, but Solas knew himself. Had these memories. Fen’Harel was too intensely curious to be bothered with bloodshed, at least for the time being. “I did, yes.”

“Before you entered uthenera or after you woke?”

“A question that you should not know the answer to.” He waited a beat. “Puppy.”

Fen’Harel’s brows rose, and he chuckled softly. The sound was without malice. “So you’re what I have to look forward to,” he said, crossing the room to the table in the middle of it. He dropped onto the chair and kicked up his feet, crossing them at the ankle on Solas’s table.

Solas scowled at the boots. “Your boots are on my table.” 

With a groan, Fen’Harel dragged his hand down his face. “Wonderful, I act as old now as Elgar’nan did then.” 

“Yes, we’re much more serious and dour now that the world is under seige.”

“Something that, if I understood our ravishing and exquisitely talented Ellana rightly, you brought about yourself. With our orb.”

Solas pressed his lips into a thin line to keep from snarling at Fen’Harel. He was congenial enough at the moment, but growling, “Stay away from Ellana Lavellan” at him, peppered with some choice expletives, would do no one any favors. Least of all Solas. Telling Fen’Harel to keep away from someone all but guaranteed he’d pursue them until he had them.

Swearing, Fen’Harel shook his head. “I _have_ become old.”

“You have become wise,” Solas snapped, and he rubbed his temples, as if that would ease the hardships of their conversation. “And this is giving me a headache.”

“Is it? Ah. You’re gaining these memories as I make them. How inconvenient that must be to you, as diminished as you are,” Fen’Harel said, and when Solas glanced at him, he wore an expression of monumental smugness. 

Gods. Insufferable, all of them. Was this, Solas wondered, how everyone else saw him? Unlikely but possible. He was more knowledgeable than any of them, and more powerful as well. Though he did his best to hide it, he was sure he slipped.

“Of all things,” Fen’Harel said, rather abruptly, “you choose _solas_ as your name? Are we to become like Mythal’s priests and guardians?”

Solas licked his lips. “Another question that you should not know the answer to.”

A curious look swept over Fen’Harel’s face. One of great consideration. Then he exhaled with understanding. A second later, his smile returned, feral and vicious, and Solas braced himself to dance on the knife-edge of Fen’Harel’s temper. “Tell me, do you remember how I kissed Ellana?” 

“The Inquisitor,” Solas said sharply.

Fen’Harel made a quiet sound of disagreement, crossing his arms and lifting his chin. The look on his face was insufferable. “Do you remember how she tasted when I licked her essence from my fingers?”

“Do you have a reason for this line of inquiry?”

“Do I need one?”

Silently, Solas reminded himself not to bait himself. Then he rubbed at his temples again, closing his eyes. The memories of this conversation were somewhat faded, only a few lines reviewed enough to have any clarity. The visions jumbled together into a garbled mess, leaving Solas vaguely nauseous and more than a little annoyed.

“Out of curiosity,” Fen’Harel began, and Solas took a deep breath, bracing himself for what he knew was coming. He’d seen a flash of Fen’Harel’s thoughts before they dissipated, a vague recollection of baiting his older self. “Did you actually expect the distressed, vagabond… what was the word? Apostate? Did you expect that look to work for you? Admittedly, it does make us look rather rugged.”

Solas gave Fen’Harel a flatly unimpressed stare.

“A compliment,” Fen’Harel assured him. “As I said, it does make us look rakish and dashing, but given how surly you are, I can’t imagine it’s gaining you much interest.” He swept his hand over his own clothes, elegant and simple by Arlathan’s standards but sumptuous when compared with modern day Thedas. “I’ve been here less than twelve hours and have likely achieved more with our delectable Inquisitor than—” 

“She is not for you,” Solas said softly.

“If I have her, it is no different than you having her.”

Solas took a steadying breath, forcing himself to remain relaxed. Now, he walked a dangerous line. Fen’Harel hadn’t moved, but there was a subtle tension to him, a tightness in his jaw and the hands laced over his abdomen. Magic thrummed in the air around them. Fen’Harel threw a look of vague annoyance to one side.

“By the by, I understand the purpose this Veil serves but it is excessively bothersome.”

When Solas said nothing, Fen’Harel let out a delighted laugh. “I knew you would be jealous,” he said, dragging his feet from the table and sending papers everywhere. He leaned forward, propping his elbow on the surface, and grinned. “I felt you the moment I appeared. Part of me wondered if you wouldn’t just fade out of existence for the duration of my stay – and don’t worry, I do intend to leave. This place is barbaric, and I can hardly stand the pressure of your Veil. Regardless, I felt you. Knew you in my bones, in my magic, and when I looked at her, I knew, too, that you would want her the way I do. But we both know you’ll never act on it.”

Fen’Harel lifted his hand and licked the tips of the fingers that had pressed into Ellana’s body, his eyes fixed on Solas’s. “She tastes like the finest of Arlathan’s wines. A crisp, sweet white with underlying notes of apple. Do you remember? Did her flavor burst across your tongue when I tasted her?”

Placing the tips of his fingers on his table, Solas leaned toward Fen’Harel. He didn’t have nearly the physical or magical strength to achieve any victory. If Fen’Harel chose to make this a confrontation, he would annihilate Solas using the magic contained in his little finger and no more while Solas exhausted himself and his every available resource. “I have not bedded her because she is more to me than a quick fuck.”

“Then fuck her slowly, old man,” Fen’Harel purred, licking the tip of his finger again. “Take her to your bed every night and indulge yourself. Indulge _her_. Hold the taste of her on your tongue and savor her slowly, daily.” He chuckled, the sound dark, edged with blatant sensuality and black desire. “Or have you forgotten how? Would you like me to demonstrate for you, old man, so the memories are fresh and vivid?”

Solas snarled softly. Fen’Harel, lips quirked in a vicious smile, snarled right back.

That was when Ellana walked into the room. Neither of them looked up, but Fen’Harel saw her in his peripheral vision, and the memory of it burned into Solas’s mind. “Here you—am I interrupting something?”

“No, huntress,” Fen’Harel said, leaning back in the chair. He extended one hand, ostensibly to her, but Solas heard no footsteps. She moved no closer.

Slowly, he straightened, and he turned toward her, wondering what she saw with them so close together. Surely Fen’Harel’s magic couldn’t obscure their similarities, not when they were side by side. Fen’Harel’s face was softer, lacking the scars and lines battle and age and simple living had given Solas. And though Fen’Harel was haughty, arrogant, imperiously disdainful, there were moments when his curiosity made him look much like Solas. 

He waited for her to see it as her eyes moved from him to Fen’Harel and back again. Her lips pursed, and they both immediately thought of the same thing: her lips around their cock, just as they’d been thinking it all night.

“The two of you,” she said, her tone almost wondering, “have remarkably similar eyes.”

“Perhaps Solas is a descendant,” Fen’Harel replied glibly, and the words hit Solas like a punch in the stomach.

Never once, not a single time, had he gotten a babe on a woman. In his youth, he had been wild and careless, full of reckless abandon and untamed passion, but he had sworn to leave no bastards, and he never had. His proposal was a monumental sacrifice of pride.

Ellana narrowed her eyes. “Of course,” she said slowly, and Solas wondered if she believed them at all. “A descendant of the Dread Wolf.”

“It would be the least remarkable thing to happen to you, Inquisitor,” Solas said.

“And by that he means to ask won’t you take us both to bed tonight, huntress,” Fen’Harel said.

She stared at them. Took a step back in her surprise. But her cheeks flushed, and it wasn’t horror that made her gasp.

_Sharp breaths. A light blush. She was beautiful, and he wanted her._

They wanted her. 

“I…” She was stunned, clearly.

Solas approached her cautiously, giving her plenty of time to bolt. She didn’t. She remained where she was, watching him, and he touched his fingers lightly to the underside of her chin. “You need not agree, _da’len_ ,” he said quietly. She called him _hahren_. To take her to bed, to go to hers, struck him as taboo for all he didn’t care for the cultural structure the Dalish used. 

“Both of you?” she asked, her voice catching on a breathy sort of moan, one that went straight through him. Arousal pooled low in his belly, desire stirring his cock. With wry amusement he did not show, he was pleasantly surprised by his own stamina. He’d come twice already and yet he wanted more. He wanted her.

“Should you like.”

“Together?”

“Presumably.”

“Can I even say no to him?” 

Fen’Harel’s angry snarl filled the room, and Solas stepped to the side so she could see the younger man’s anger. “Do you think I would force you?” he demanded. “Do you think I am so evil, so _dread_ , that I would take what is not freely given?” His eyes slid to Solas, and Solas saw wrath in his eyes. “What legends do the Dalish have that so malign me?”

“Yet another question best left unanswered.”

Fen’Harel’s gaze swung back to Ellana. Softened. “You are a delight, huntress, and I would like to delight you before I return to my proper time.” He rose from Solas’s chair and glided across the room, his steps slow and measured, his movements predatory and focused.

She stared, quite obviously enraptured by the sight of him. From a completely and utterly objective point of view, Solas rather agreed. His younger self, albeit idiotic and impulsive at best, was exactly the dangerous sort of man many young women dreamed of taming. And he was offering to be tame for her for one night.

“But you…” She was, Solas realized, struggling with the very core of who Fen’Harel was. She wanted the man but feared the god. He put it from his mind. She would never find out the truth. She would never learn Solas and Fen’Harel were the same. “You’re the Dread Wolf.”

“Yes,” he agreed, brushing his knuckles over her vallaslin.

_Soft, yielding skin. Warm under his fingers. Would he find the vallaslin on her breasts? Her belly? Her thighs? Would Andruil’s bows be on her hips? Would an arrow point to the sweetness between her legs?_

“And I would have you howl for me, huntress.”

Her eyes met Solas’s. “You’re… amenable to this?”

“If you are,” he said honestly. Because he’d realized something. Fen’Harel was rarely selfish. Oh, he was self-serving and as egomaniacal as any with absurd amounts of power, but he wasn’t selfish. He wasn’t propositioning Ellana solely for himself. He was propositioning Ellana for Solas’s sake.

The memory of a single thought came to him with so much clarity it nearly bowled him over.

_We never do well alone._

The fingers of one of her hands twined around his, drawing him out of his shock. Her other hand curled around Fen’Harel’s wrist. “It’s… been a while,” she said. Then, under her breath, added, “Not for lack of trying.”

Fen’Harel laughed as Solas grimaced. “Then we shall make this an exquisite experience, huntress.” He bent forward, his lips ghosting over hers, and there was, Solas thought, something obscene about watching himself kiss a woman at the same time he remembered the event. “Take us to bed.”


	3. Chapter 3

Fen’Harel’s magic was uncomfortably familiar. Solas wasn’t sure why this fact bothered him, but it did. He didn’t like the way it sat against his skin, so similar and yet so different. Fen’Harel’s magic was wild, untamable, limited only by the Veil. It was raw and powerful, visceral in a way that Solas’s wasn’t. Though Fen’Harel might not be able to accomplish a spell with glittering finesse, he would still be able to accomplish it; there was little he was incapable of doing.

Solas’s magic was a still, calm river to Fen’Harel’s raging ocean of power. The winds of Fen’Harel’s magic swept over Solas’s, rippling the surface of his well of mana, and it left him feeling almost itchy. It was the same sort of feeling one had when one knew the name of a thing but couldn’t call the word to mind.

But it was Fen’Harel who took them from the rotunda to the Inquisitor’s rooms, wreathed in so much magic that they were invisible to anyone who looked their way. Solas would tolerate the discomfort for the privacy.

He trailed after his younger self and the Inquisitor, rather surprised he was doing this. He’d done such things often enough in his youth. Fen’Harel had done such things. Did such things. Solas suppressed a sigh and clenched his hands into fists to keep from pinching the bridge of his nose. Really, the common language spoken across Thedas lacked the right verb forms for dealing with time travel. 

He supposed such a thing was good, however. Mucking about with time travel was always dangerous. Fen’Harel was point and case for that.

Newly created memories bounced around inside his skull, all of them tinged with an odd sort of anxiety. Fen’Harel was eager. Excited. The flavor of his anticipation colored all of Solas’s memories of Ellana. Now, when he met her, he remembered a moment where his breath caught. He’d been waiting for that day when Cassandra brought him to her to keep her alive, and he’d nearly choked on his own breath. Lust had crashed over him, heavy and hard. The culmination of years of fantasies and dreams of her.

Perhaps that was why he’d agreed, though it went against his more sedate nature. Fen’Harel was more than happy to share, and Solas knew well that this was mostly a ploy to get him into Ellana’s bed. Fen’Harel’s memories made that much clear. This was for Solas’s benefit. And for Ellana’s.

Fen’Harel didn’t think either of them would ever do anything more than gaze wistfully at the other’s back if he didn’t shove. 

As they climbed the stairs to Ellana’s rooms, Solas wondered if he should dismiss Fen’Harel now. No, he realized as Ellana smiled shyly at them both and reached for the handle on the door to her room. No, if he dismissed his younger self, Fen’Harel would likely rage at being denied something he wanted. It was better to simply accept the situation as it was, even though it was more than a little unorthodox. 

Fen’Harel threw him a look that said, somehow all at once, _Stop being a prude and dragging your feet. How many women did you share with other men when you were me? This is no different than those times._

Except it was because it was Ellana and she didn’t know.

Fen’Harel’s gaze softened ever so slightly. _We never do well alone._

No, they didn’t. They pretended they did, but it wasn’t true. The Dread Wolf was a creature who longed for a pack. The Inquisition had become that pack for Solas after a fashion, but Fen’Harel? He was lost and adrift in the past, searching for that place he could call home. He filled the void with power and women and fighting and tormenting Elgar’nan which led to even more fighting.

Solas looked away for a moment, bracing himself against the reality that he would be adrift like that again. At least he had purpose. Purpose could be home enough, even if it didn’t provide companionship or keep one warm.

Fen’Harel grabbed his shoulder, yanking him toward the door where Ellana stood, watching them both with a nervous expression. “You’re thinking too much, old man,” he growled, the words rumbling between them. There was a flash of temper, a moment where Fen’Harel was exquisitely annoyed with him. “Are you going to leave her dangling? Make her think you don’t want her?” Fen’Harel’s grin was lupine – wide and full of teeth. “We both know you do.”

He did. He ached for her, and Fen’Harel was giving him an excuse to set aside all his rules. For her.

“You see,” Fen’Harel murmured. “I am not so dread.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Ellana said, and they swung their gazes toward her. It was eerie, seeing her and remembering seeing her at the same time. Lust and the memory of lust burned through him, a scalding fire of need and want, and for Solas it was almost painful. Thousands of years of wanting, and there she stood. Just out of reach. One step forward and she’d be within reach.

“You’re not interrupting,” Fen’Harel said.

“Ah. Well. It’s just that, for a moment, it looked like you might kiss.”

Solas blanched. 

Fen’Harel threw back his head and howled with laughter. The sound echoed and bounced around the tower. At least one of them was amused. When his laughter subsided, Fen’Harel glided forward, stopping a breath away from Ellana.

Behind him, Solas tensed.

But all Fen’Harel did was bend his head and touch his lips to hers, a mimicry of the kiss Solas had given her earlier in the rotunda. Light. Gentle. A barely there caress that made her shiver. “We will do many things, huntress, but not that. This is about you.” He reached around her and pushed the door to her room open. “In,” he commanded, and she went. He glanced over his shoulder at Solas, and Solas knew the look on Fen’Harel’s face well.

Predatory. Predator. He would consume Ellana with or without Solas, and Solas would be damned for all eternity before he let that happen. No, his first time with Ellana would not be memories from his youth.

“At least you crushed that hope,” he said, striding forward, stepping into the room.

Fen’Harel chuckled. “I’ve wondered before what might happen if I ever had the chance to fuck myself in the literal sense,” he said.

“I know,” Solas returned drily. He knew well.

“Now that I’ve been given the opportunity to actually do it, it seems oddly…”

“Megalomaniacal? Self-aggrandizing? Egotistical?” All those things and more, Solas thought.

“Odd, coming from us. All the same, I’d rather not.”

“Then we are in agreement.” Solas gave Fen’Harel an almost patronizing smile. “Puppy.”

Fen’Harel snarled softly, but there was no heat in the sound. It lacked conviction. “Get in there, old man, and help me fuck our woman so thoroughly she doesn’t want to move for a week.”

In Fen’Harel’s time, keeping a woman in his bed for a week would have been no time at all. He preferred to keep his lovers for months on end, breaking them with pleasure. Solas didn’t have a week to laze about. His time was precious. It was…

He laughed softly. “Thank you,” he said, because he realized how little time he did have and how Fen’Harel was forcing him to confront that.

“Don’t thank me. I want her, too,” Fen’Harel replied, and he pressed his hand to Solas’s back, forcing him into Ellana’s bedroom.

She stood at the top of the flight of stairs, shifting from one foot to the other, brushing a lock of hair under her chin. “Do you remember how I said it’s been a while?” she asked as they ascending the stairs. Her eyes jumped from Solas to Fen’Harel and back again.

“Is this when you promise us your virginity, huntress?” Fen’Harel asked.

She pressed her lips into a thin line, revealing her answer. Solas had known it, though. He always had. It was a large part of the reason he refused to touch her. She was a virgin, the Dalish largely foregoing premarital sex as a matter of necessity, and she deserved better than a lover who would take his pleasure and leave her.

But, he reasoned silently as he reached for her, drawing her into his arms, he would give her pleasure, too. Hours of it. As much as he could. When they couldn’t be together physically, he would take her in dreams. 

“I didn’t—”

“Is it precious to you?” Solas asked, drawing her close and settling his hands on her hips. He bent toward her, and he felt a tremor run through her. Her lips parted, ready for a kiss, and she swayed toward him. Everything about her demeanor begged for sex.

“Not particularly,” she murmured. “I just didn’t want you to be surprised. Or feel misled.”

Fen’Harel approached her from behind, pressing himself along her back, and Solas bit back a groan. She was clever enough that she would want to know why things Fen’Harel did had an impact on him, and he couldn’t tell her that the swell of her ass was perfect against his cock, that he’d spent thousands of years subsisting on that memory and others like it to ward off loneliness.

She kept him going through the ages. The chance to meet her, to know her, the need to understand why Solas desired her so much propelled Fen’Harel forward when despair ought to have taken him.

“On the contrary,” Fen’Harel said as he pulled her hair away from her neck. Both of them fixed their eyes on that place where her neck sloped into her shoulder. Both of them wanted to taste her skin there, to inhale her scent and then mark her with their own. “We’re honored, I assure you.” He licked her neck.

Another memory that fueled fantasies.

_Soft. Sweet, but slightly salty. A gasp and a tremble. Her body melting against his._

Solas cupped her cheek. “Ellana,” he breathed. And then he kissed her. Truly kissed her. It wasn’t a tease, like in the rotunda. It was a kiss meant to brand. To possess. To give and to take in equal measure. When his tongue slipped into her mouth and he finally tasted her, after centuries of remembering, he groaned, and the hands on her hips dragged her closer. He was half hard for her, quickly swelling against the softness of her belly as eager sounds of pleasure fell from her mouth to his.

She offered, and he took. She asked, and he gave. And behind them, rubbing against the sweet curve of her ass, Fen’Harel started a slow grind that had her panting and grabbing desperately at Solas’s tunic.

He felt it then, the swirl of Fen’Harel’s magic. It brushed over them both, sinking through their clothes and caressing their skin, and Ellana pulled away from Solas’s kiss to gasp. She still clung to him, but her head dropped back to Fen’Harel’s shoulder. “What are you doing?” she asked, rocking her hips against Solas’s, dragging pleasure through his body in thick rivers of fire.

“Fucking you,” Fen’Harel replied mildly, but a growl edged his voice, and his eyes were ravenous. “Did you think a god would be content with kisses?” He kissed her then anyway, with a force and fire Solas kept at bay. Fen’Harel consumed her mouth, licking into every inch of it, claiming it as his, and Solas was struck by how many times he’d found himself staring at her mouth since meeting her, longing for the day he’d kiss her and knowing he couldn’t touch her until his younger self stumbled out of a portal.

Time travel. It was a nightmare. If they hadn’t already gone into the Fade, he was fairly sure his gravestone would say “time travel” now.

As Fen’Harel devoured her mouth, Solas pulled at the toggles on her tunic, freeing them and baring her naked skin. She was sun-kissed and beautiful, lithe and tight with muscle, her breasts high and firm under her breast band. And the lines of her vallaslin curved over her chest, bows framing her breasts and arrows pointing toward her nipples.

He never thought he’d ever see the vallaslin as beautiful marks, but on her? On her, they were a treasure. 

Fen’Harel lifted his mouth from hers to peer over her shoulder, and he swore softly as Solas followed the lines of Andruil’s bows with his fingers. How enraged Andruil would be if she knew he had taken one devoted to her when he had spurned the goddess herself. 

“Where else do your vallaslin mark you?” Fen’Harel asked, his voice thick with desire.

Her only response was a strangled moan.

Solas’s fingers drifted over her breasts and then her stomach. Her breeches sat low on her belly, low enough that he could see the edges of another bow. “Here,” he said, tracing the general shape of it over her clothes, and she gasped, eyes fluttering open to meet his. “Will we find one of Andruil’s arrows here?” 

She whimpered softly. “Solas…” She caught her lower lip, looking bashful. Hesitant. 

The endearment was on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it back. “Yes, Ellana?” He purred her name instead.

“Please,” she whimpered, arching against his touch, twisting as though she could force his hand lower, where she wanted it. Where she surely needed it.

Solas glanced at Fen’Harel, and without a word passing between them, Fen’Harel understood. He took her mouth in another rough, all-consuming kiss as Solas brushed his fingers over her breasts, cupping her through the band. Fen’Harel swallowed her quiet cry of delight as her eyes shut and her body strained. He caught her moan when Solas’s thumbs brushed over her nipples.

And still Fen’Harel’s magic swirled around them. Stroking. Caressing. Magic was Fen’Harel’s favorite way to pleasure a woman. He took great delight in binding her to his bed and driving her to heights of mindless ecstasy with his will alone. He loved to watch her twist and writhe, loved to make her beg for his physical touch.

Now he could have both at the same time. 

Solas felt Fen’Harel’s magic burst in icy blasts against Ellana’s skin, and she cried out, pulling away from his kiss as her hips worked against Solas’s.

“Beautiful,” Solas said, the words a quiet exhalation. He’d never seen someone so lovely as her, no one so utterly captivating. Her lips parted, her eyes shut, she sucked in harsh breaths that forced her breasts into his palms. 

His fingers found the place where her breast band fastened as Fen’Harel slipped her tunic from her shoulders and discarded it. He unwound the strip of fabric, letting it drop from his fingers, and he couldn’t stop himself from licking his lips. “Beautiful,” he breathed again, stroking his fingers lightly over the peaks of her breasts, where tiny, delicate arrows pointed toward her nipples.

She gasped and arched into his touch, no shyness from her now that she was trapped between their hard bodies. Need was etched into every line of her face, a fierce desire for more pleasure.

Fen’Harel growled softly, sliding his hands up her sides, and Solas dropped his hands to her hips so that Fen’Harel could touch her, feel her, measure the weight of her. Elvish spilled from his lips, words like honeyed poison, and Solas was grateful that Ellana wouldn’t be able to understand most of the lurid praise Fen’Harel was giving her.

“What are you saying?” she demanded, her fingers raking across Solas’s chest and fisting around the hem of his tunic. She dragged it up, and he obliged her by slipping out of it and then the shirt beneath. “ _Hahren_ , what do those words mean?”

Lust speared him, heat pooling in his belly and making his cock ache for her. Briefly, he met Fen’Harel’s gaze, both of them amused by the fact that she could have been addressing either of them.

“Tell me,” she gasped as Fen’Harel’s fingers pinched her nipples, taking them from a dusky pink to a berry red, making them flushed and hard.

“You’re ripe with desire,” Fen’Harel murmured against her ear, and she cried out, hips snapping against Solas’s.

_A brush of magic between her legs. A tongue of ice and flame licking her clit. Her cries like music in his ears as she worked herself against the other him, the older him._

“I can smell it, huntress, dripping from your sweet cunt.” Another quiet cry, her hips moving against Solas’s, and Solas closed his eyes, groaning softly, barely able to stand under the onslaught of heady pleasure combined with Fen’Harel’s memories. “What if Solas slid his hands into your breeches?” 

As if those words were an invitation, Solas slid one hand to the small of her back. The other pressed against her belly, softly rounded, and his fingers toyed with the waist of her breeches. She gasped, eyes wide and unseeing, glazed with passion and they’d barely done anything to her.

_She writhed against him, against them both, her ass the perfect shape to trap his cock, even with her breeches. He burned, needed, yearned to be inside her, craved the slick, wet heat of her cunt grasping him._

Solas moved his hand slowly down her stomach, pushing his fingers into her breeches, into her smalls, not able to do much more than follow Fen’Harel’s lead. It was too much, nearly overwhelming, and he wasn’t used to being overwhelmed.

“Creators! _Please_ , Solas!” 

But Solas didn’t give her what she wanted. The tip of his middle finger rested at the start of her slit, a tantalizing overture.

“Try again, huntress,” Fen’Harel growled softly.

Senseless sounds fell from her lips, and Solas shifted slightly. He found her cheek. Brushed it along his. His lips found the corner of hers. His tongue licked along her lower lip.

“Fen’Harel,” she whimpered, and the name went through both of them like lightning.

_“Fen’Harel,” she whimpered, and he grasped his cock in rough, callused hands._

_“Fen’Harel,” she whimpered, and he bit the fleshy part of his palm as he brought himself over the edge._

_“Fen’Harel,” she whimpered, and he broke under the pleasure of his name on her lips._

_“Fen’Harel,” she whimpered, and she owned him, damn her._

Fen’Harel’s hands fell from her breasts to her hips and he yanked her back, grinding her against his cock. “What if one finger, just a single finger, slipped through your folds like my magic is doing?” Fen’Harel asked. Solas slid his hand lower, pressing his middle finger between lips swollen and wet with her need.

A snarl escaped him, unbidden. From her, a plaintive wail of need.

Magic twisted around them, and Solas felt it on the back of his hand. It pressed against her, into her, filling her gently and curling inside her.

“Please,” she gasped, and Solas opened his eyes. He needed to see her, to anchor himself by the sight of her face.

Her eyes were closed, her head thrown back on Fen’Harel’s shoulder so that her throat was bared to them both. Fen’Harel’s eyes glittered as he nipped her neck, making her breath hitch and her breasts bounce.

“What do your pretty breasts taste like?” Fen’Harel asked, and Solas dropped his mouth from her lips to her chest, peppering her with kisses.

“No, no,” she murmured. “I need—” 

“We know what you need, huntress.” Fen’Harel’s fingers dug into her hips. “How wet are you for us? Are you soaking your small clothes with your need?”

Solas fastened his lips around one of her nipples and sucked, catching the taut nub with his teeth. At the same time, he pressed his middle finger against her entrance, circling it. Teasing her. She sobbed wordlessly, her hips straining against Fen’Harel’s hold.

“Enough,” Fen’Harel said abruptly, yanking her back, all but tearing her from Solas’s touch.

She cried out at the loss as Fen’Harel turned her to the bed. “Bed, huntress.” She stared at him, dazed. “Bed,” he said again, and he released her.

They watched her stumble to it and then onto it, her breasts swaying as she settled. A flush crept over her cheeks, and she lifted her arms to cover herself.

“No,” they said at the same time, and she froze, eyes wide and fixed on them both.

“Strip her,” Fen’Harel said softly. 

Solas went to her immediately, kneeling between her legs before unlacing her boots and pulling them off without art or ceremony. She stared at him, sucking in great, gulping breaths, and her fingers curled into fists in her bed sheets. When her boots were set aside, he pulled at the laces of her breeches. “On your back,” he said softly, biting back the endearment that was so ready to come out. That was for later. For her and for him, and no one else.

She dropped onto her back at the same time Fen’Harel’s robes hit the ground. 

With reverent fingers, Solas peeled her out of her breeches and her smalls. He might have spread her legs and dragged her hips to the edge of the bed to feast on her, but he allowed her some measure of modesty. She pressed her legs together, and he hoped that all she did was aggravate the ache that burned in her cunt. 

He stood, quickly shucking his own clothes – the complex linens he wore wrapped around his legs were easily undone, though not so easily donned, and he stretched out on the bed beside her.

“Hello,” he said softly, brushing his fingers over her cheek.

She turned to him, her eyes soft and half-lidded with lust. “Touch me, please.”

He propped himself up as Fen’Harel drifted toward them. Solas wondered if he looked like his younger self. Hungry. Ravenous. Like he was seconds from falling on her. 

“Huntress,” Fen’Harel said, his voice low and dangerous. “On your knees.” She made a strange, uncertain sound, and Solas ran his hand over her belly, knowing precisely what Fen’Harel wanted. Wanting it just as badly.

“Hands and knees,” he murmured, helping her up.

She went willingly, but she kept looking back at Solas. He nuzzled her neck, leaning over her back and dipping his hand between her legs. Her arousal coated his fingers, dripping off her, like Fen’Harel wanted. Like he imagined. 

Fen’Harel knelt at the end of the bed, wicked intent in his eyes. His fingers drifted through Ellana’s hair, combing it, and then fisted in it. “Suck me,” he commanded, drawing her close, and there was little compassion in him. Solas could see it. Could remember it.

_Lust. Burning, scalding. Desperate need. Wet heat._

_Not for him. For the other him. Another kind of heat. Almost the same fulfillment._

She leaned forward, lowering herself to her forearms. Her breath fanned over the tip of his cock as she looked up at him, wide eyed with disbelief and desire. “I never thought I’d actually do this.”

Desire coursed through both of them. Solas could remember it even as he felt it, and he felt certain her next words would undo him.

“You’ve thought on it?” Fen’Harel asked, surprised.

“Keepers protect their clans from the Dread Wolf,” Ellana said, and Solas remembered the flash of playfulness in her expression. “Why wouldn’t he seduce a pretty Keeper to get what he wanted?”

Fen’Harel didn’t understand the whole of what she was saying, how could he, but he understood enough. There, too, was a fantasy that kept him warm on long, cold nights alone: her standing against him and him bending her to his will with sweet seduction.

But Solas understood. Solas comprehended all the shades of meaning, the nuance, the implications, and it rocked him to his core. Maybe, he thought. Maybe if she knew. _Maybe_.

“Perhaps,” Fen’Harel said slowly, “I can be assuaged with the proper devotion. Suck me, Keeper.”

She shivered, leaned forward, and wrapped her mouth around him.

The oath that escaped him made Solas’s brows lift. In Elvish, Fen’Harel said, “Like liquid fire, the slick, sensual heat of you, your tongue, your lips, you are poetry given form.” And then he said nothing but her name, grasping great fistfuls of her hair as she bobbed on his cock, as she laved him with her tongue, as she gave him enough that his nights were fractured moments of pleasure brought about by the memory of her tongue on him.

Solas pulled away from her, and she whimpered softly. Fen’Harel stroked her cheek as Solas went to his back, sliding between her legs. His fingers curled over her hips, mirroring the arc of Andruil’s bows, and he drew her down, urged her closer, until her cunt was against his mouth.

He licked her.

She moaned, long and low.

Fen’Harel snarled and yanked her forward, forcing himself deeper.

The memories welled within him, making his skin feel too small, too tight. And then there was the taste of her, bursting like white wine on his tongue, just as Fen’Harel had described it. Except it was even better in reality, addicting, and Solas knew he’d spend hours between her thighs. As much time as she’d allow. He would tongue her until she begged for more, until she begged him to stop, until she begged him to finish her, and he would deny her just to see her climb higher. 

It was almost too much. The memories of her mouth on his cock, sucking him deep, were fresh and immediate, as if thousands of years didn’t separate him from Fen’Harel at all. And the taste of her threatened his very sanity. It was almost enough to make him forsake everything except her, to give up on all his scheming and machinations if he could have her every night, night after night.

She trembled, her thighs shaking, and he lifted his hand, pressing one finger to her entrance. Around Fen’Harel’s cock, she cried out, and the vibration of it made Fen’Harel shudder and groan. He stroked his fingers through her hair, and it fell like silk around them.

“More,” he demanded in Elvish, and she didn’t need to understand to obey. She sucked harder, took him deeper, faster. “Like that,” he groaned, in the common tongue they all shared. “Like that.” 

The word was on the tip of his tongue, too, the sweetest of endearments, and in the months and weeks to come it would trouble him, but Fen’Harel would refuse to dwell on it.

Solas, however, did not. _Vhenan_ , he thought as he slid first one finger and then two into her. She whimpered and keened, shuddering over him. _Vhenan’ara_. It was a promise as he curled his fingers inside her, as his tongue snaked around her clit. She was close, and memory said Fen’Harel was, too. He would give his younger self a gift, a silent thank you.

When Fen’Harel broke, when his body seized with pleasure, so too did Ellana’s. As Fen’Harel came, so did she, and she swallowed his seed eagerly with moans of delight. Solas dragged out her orgasm as long as he could, using every piece of knowledge he had about the female body to make the experience exquisite for her.

Finally, she stilled over him. He slid out from under her, turning and drawing her back to his chest as Fen’Harel stroked his fingers over her cheek. “You deserve a god,” he told her in Elvish.

“What did you say?” she asked, curling her fingers lightly over his wrist.

He lingered a second longer than both he and Solas knew he should have. “Enjoy your lover,” he said, pulling back and sliding off the bed.

She blinked. “But—”

Solas shifted her in his arms, taking her to the bed as Fen’Harel collected his clothes.

“But, he—”

Solas silenced her with a kiss, long and lingering and slow, and by the time he pulled back, her cheeks were flushed with desire and Fen’Harel was gone. The memory of a thought remained. _We never do well alone. You’re welcome, old man._

He kissed her again, ignoring the flickers of memory as Fen’Harel dressed and left Ellana’s chambers.

Her tongue was sweet in his mouth, stroking lightly along his own, but he didn’t want her tongue. He wanted his tongue on her again, and so he pulled back, pressing kisses to the lines of vallaslin on her face. He followed the markings down her throat, licked along her breasts. His tongue swirled around her nipples as he shifted his hips between hers. Hard and hot, his cock settled between her legs, and she wrapped her ankles high on his waist.

“Solas,” she moaned as he kissed the valley between her breasts. “Solas, please.”

“ _Vhenan_ ,” he breathed over her heart, and she cried out, as if the word was a physical caress, as if he’d pressed magic between her legs.

He wanted to take her like that. He wanted to hold her down and fill her with his magic until she was desperate for a real touch, until his hand on her cheek, on her belly, on her ankle would be enough to make her come. He wanted to press his magic into her cunt until she sobbed, until tears of pleasure streaked her face and she begged for it to end and never end all at the same time.

Instead, he rocked his cock between her legs, coating himself in the slickness of her arousal.

“Solas, please.”

He licked the peak of one nipple. Nipped it with his teeth. “Clarity,” he told her, “is important in all things. Please what, _vhenan_?”

Her legs tightened around his hips as she mewled with pleasure. Her nails raked over his shoulders as she tried to claw him closer, like she wanted to force him into her skin. “I need you,” she murmured, arching her hips against his. 

For a single, perfect moment, the head of his cock brushed her entrance. She twisted her hips as she cried out, and it was almost enough for him to slide into her. Almost, but not quite.

Her nails dug into his shoulders. “Please!”

“Please what?” he asked again, nuzzling her neck, licking that spot that so fascinated him and Fen’Harel.

With a strangled groan, she said, “Fuck me. Please, _hahren_ —” That word made such heat pour through him that he thought he’d burn. “—Solas, fuck me, please.”

“Such language,” he murmured, but he took her hip in one hand, canting her so that when he slid his cock against her, he pressed into her entrance. Slowly, he pushed inside her, each inch a burning agony. She was tight, hot, wet, everything a woman should be and more. He went slowly, aware that too much too fast would ruin this for her, and the last thing he wanted was to ruin sex for her.

He wanted her addicted to him, as addicted as he was. For thousands of years, he’d remembered her mouth on him. Her cries. The feel of her in his arms, the way the vallaslin curled around her body, and he’d denied himself. For months, he’d denied himself, knowing what would happen, knowing how all of this played out.

And now he had her. He wanted to keep her. He couldn’t, but for as long as possible, he would warm her bed. Night after night, in dreams if reality wouldn’t allow a physical joining.

She gasped when he was seated fully inside her, her body a hot and welcoming sheath. 

“How do you feel?” he asked, brushing his nose against hers, whispering his lips over hers for a feather-light kiss. “Pain?”

“No,” she said, and her voice was full of wonder.

Around him, her body rippled and squeezed, the light tremors of a woman well-pleased with the feel of her lover inside her.

“Good,” she breathed. “So good.” She rocked her hips against his, a small experiment, and he hissed with pleasure as he slid inside her.

“Again,” he told her.

With a laugh made dark by wanting, she said, “You sound like Fen’Harel.”

He dropped his face to her neck and bit her, not hard enough to leave a mark but hard enough to chastise – marks would come later. And in other places. “Ellana. _Vhenan_.”

She set one leg on the bed and used it to give herself leverage, rocking against him as she turned and licked his ear. He shuddered, his fingers digging into her hips.

And then he moved. Bracing himself on one arm, holding her with his other hand, he drew out of her and thrust back in, watching her face, studying it, committing the signs of her pleasure to memory as Fen’Harel had. 

She was a revelation. She caught his rhythm quickly, meeting him thrust for thrust and demanded more. His little virgin was a vixen, telling him harder, faster, deeper, twisting her hips to get what she wanted when she wanted it. He was helpless not to give her exactly what her body asked for. 

When her cunt squeezed him, he slid his hand from her hip to her clit, and he traced a glyph there. Lightning sizzled along their flesh, and she screamed, actually screamed his name, as she threw back her head and came. He gritted his teeth against the pleasure of her rippling around him, pressing his mouth to her neck in what might have been kisses. He just needed to taste her as she undulated against him, rocking her hips against his with reckless abandon.

To torment her, he traced another glyph against her clit, and she was so sensitized she came again with another cry. That time, she cupped the back of his head and watched him, her eyes fixed on his as she shuddered and came undone in his arms. “ _Vhenan_ ,” she whispered, and it was enough to break him.

Ecstasy building in him reached an exquisite peak. It broke over him like a wave, and he jerked into her, unable to pull out of her before he came. Not that she would have let him. Her one leg tightened around him, holding him inside her as his seed spilled into her. Her eyes remained fixed on his as he gasped her name, his fingers digging into her bed sheets until the sheets tore.

Breathing seemed impossible as he stilled. She shifted beneath him, and his cock, softening now, slipped from her body. A little moan escaped her. 

“ _Ar lath ma_ ,” he murmured, nuzzling into her neck, inhaling her scent mixed with his.

She whispered the words back, wrapping her arms and legs around him, cradling him against her. “That was spectacular,” she said, her fingers idly stroking the shell of his ear. 

He shivered and turned into the caress. “It always should be.”

“Can we do it again?” she asked, and he choked on laughter.

He wasn’t so old as Fen’Harel thought he was, and he was more than able to please her again and again and again.

She drifted off to sleep shortly before dawn, and Solas wrapped his body around hers. He was exhausted, tired to his bones, but unable to sleep.

Fen’Harel was in the tavern. In one of the rooms in the tavern. Two naked bodies were draped over him, and it was with sudden horror and clarity that Solas realized he’d bedded Skinner and Dalish. He wasn’t surprised. This sort of thing was to be expected. But he was still horrified. Because of course Fen’Harel would bed the two Chargers. _Of course_.

He and Ellana rose after midday in the tradition of all lovers. She laughed and teased him as they put on their clothes, testing to see how much it would take to make him snap and take her back to bed. He held out against her, but promised wicked reprisal with his eyes. “We must see to Fen’Harel,” he reminded her.

“He made me promise never to bend time again,” she said.

A fact which he knew. “As powerful as he is, I wouldn’t be surprised if he can bend time on his own.”

And he did. They found him in the courtyard, holding the broken ironbark amulet in his hand. He passed it to Ellana, ignoring the growing crowd of curious onlookers, and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. A friendly kiss, not a romantic one. But there was heat in his eyes. The Dread Wolf had her scent, and he would not forget it, Solas knew. “Remember your promise,” he told her.

She swallowed hard, and Solas saw the shimmer of tears unshed in her eyes. “My clan…”

Fen’Harel cupped her face in his hands. “Time is more complex than you realize. It is not a river. You cannot swim in both directions.”

“You did.”

A strange expression crossed over his face. “I am not as you are,” he said. “Do not use me as a measure.” His thumbs stroked her cheeks, and Solas remembered the heartache. It would be thousands of years before he saw Ellana again, and he was clinging to these last few moments. “Don’t try such magics again, huntress. Keep your promise.”

“But how will you get home?” she asked.

“The way I always do,” he said, and there was a sadness in his voice. He would go as he always did: alone. 

His magic created a portal and, with an ostentatious bow, he stepped through it. The portal twisted in on itself a second later, disappearing a second after that, and Ellana turned toward Solas. She approached him with the pendant in her hand, and she offered it to him. “Burn it?” she asked. “If I bring Alexius’s notes, will you burn them, too? I don’t… I don’t think I can.”

Solas took the pendant from her and slipped it into a pouch at his side. “I am sorry,” he told her.

A wry smile lifted her lips. “You know what’s surprising?”

“Tell me.”

“I’m not. The Dread Wolf isn’t so dread, is he? Just…”

“Arrogant?” Solas offered. “Egomaniacal?”

“Self-obsessed,” she suggested.

“Pompous.”

“Like one of those Orlesian peacocks.”

He took offense to that, but he could not disagree. Laughing softly, he inclined his head. “And you were able to meet him. You were able to…” He trailed off and she cleared her throat.

“Yes, well. We’re not going to summon any more gods to Skyhold, I think. One was quite enough.” She leaned closer to him, but she didn’t touch him. Didn’t make any move that might indicate there was more between them than the relationship a mentor and student should share. “He brought you to me.”

“So he did,” Solas agreed, and in that moment, without thinking on the past or the future, everything was right in the world.


End file.
